Monday, October 6, 2014

History Day

I've been participating in Greenfield's History Day for about 5 years now. I enjoy it and look forward to it each October. The Greenfield Historical Society is a very active group; we are growing and increasing our presence in the community all the time. I am not the most active member, but I am involved in a few projects.

Anyway, back to History Day. I take my Q-Snap quilting frame and project and just sit there quilting all day long, visiting with folks. I answer questions, mostly, but I ask a few, as well. Whenever I sense that someone is reluctant to begin a conversation, I generally ask if they have ever seen anyone quilt before. This opens up some good stories from folks, or it leads them to tell me about a special quilt that they own. I get a few quilters stopping by to talk about our common hobby, and it's always a pleasure to see just how widespread this pastime is.

This year, I had more youngsters showing an interest in quilting than I ever remember before. Three were even willing to pull up a chair, grab a needle and thread and try quilting a straight line across a block or two. I showed them how to bury the knot between the layers; how to hold the needle so that they wouldn't pull it off the thread; how to "rock" the needle, using the thimble and the fingers to "feel" the needle on both the top and bottom of the quilt.

Here's my delightful young friend Heather. What a trooper! We had some trouble with that thread, but she stayed right with it and stitched all the way across the block.

This is the block Heather stitched. I use masking tape to provide a straight edge for me to follow, so that is how I had Heather operate. After determining that she's a right hander, we buried that knot, and off she went! Since I am a lefty, she couldn't exactly copy what I did, but we figured out together.

See her stitches? I wonder if you can tell which stitches are Heather's and which are mine?

A bit later, Shelby came along. She watched me stitch for a long time while I visited with her parents, who are friends. Shelby asked a few questions, and so I invited her to sit down and give it a try. Look at that concentration!

And check out someone else who was concentrating -- little sister Courtney. Before you knew it, we had another needle threaded up, located a thimble, and she was off to the races. Shelby is a high school senior and Courtney is an 8th grader. I can't tell you how pleased I was that they were so willing and interested in quilting.

I wonder if you can tell what the quilt is that I have in the frame? Does it look familiar? Take a look at last year's History Day post and you will definitely see what I'm talking about. Yes, it's the same quilt, Long Road Home.

A few visitors noticed it, and I was completely honest with them. I had incorrectly measured my markings, and consequently I was unhappy with the discrepancy. Whenever I am in a quandary like this, my general coping mechanism is to just quit working on the project all together.

Since I needed a project for History Day, though, I needed to make a decision! Should I just keep going and ignore the inconsistent crosshatching? Or should I fix it, remove the offending stitches, and make things right?

I decided there was no way I was going to remove stitches. Basically, I took a whole year ignoring this project, only to finally decide that I just need to get back to stitching, forget the minor error, and get this UFO finished. Whew.